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New contact center services boost customer engagements

After a five-year slump, contact center services and innovation have come roaring back, according to Marty Parker, principal consultant at UniComm Consulting, based in Loomis, Calif. In particular, organizations are interested in applying software and data mining to improve customer engagements.

One vendor looking to innovate around contact center services is Oracle with its Live Experience Cloud product. The mobile-centric service, launched in September 2017, aims to provide contextual contact center communications by using voice, video, screen sharing and annotation capabilities. 

Live Experience Cloud is different than other cloud-based contact center services, Parker said, because it is more data-centric. In-depth database analysis is something to expect from Oracle, he added. With Live Experience Cloud, customers can escalate a chat bot interaction to live agent assistance. Real-time recording, search and playback features are also available.

"[Oracle is] thinking about customer engagements differently, with a mobile-first, web-first model," Parker said. "Agents can be part of the process, but it doesn't start with an agent."

Merging virtual assistants and human associates

Another vendor, TTEC, launched its Humanify Digital Worker Factory in June 2017. Marketed as customer engagement as a service, Humanify offers omnichannel capabilities and end-to-end customer engagement with human, digital and automated interactions. 

TTEC's Humanify extends the line of communications in a contact center call, Parker said. The product combines software and artificial intelligence to essentially create a contact center agent, Parker added, while also including person-to-person interactions.    

Both Oracle and TTEC products were Best of Enterprise Connect finalists last month at the unified communications (UC) conference in Orlando, Fla. In the video above, check out product demos from both vendors. Other Best of Enterprise Connect finalists included Cisco, Microsoft, Plantronics and Polycom.

The award finalists usually reflect UC trends, innovation and evolution. Microsoft Teams won the top award. Parker was a Best of Enterprise Connect judge.

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